What is globalization?

1. What is globalization?

2. Good Morning, World! • As I wake up, I throw back my sheets and blankets, get out of bed and put on my slippers. I then go to the bathroom where I shower with soap and water. I go back to my bedroom, take off my towel, and put on my clothes and shoes. Lately, it has been rainy so I usually have to wear a jacket to keep me dry. In the kitchen, I quickly eat a bowl of cereal and drink a cup of coffee while reading The Globe and Mail. I quickly rush upstairs to brush my teeth. Then, I grab my books and head out the door to the bus stop.

3. What is your morning routine? Write it down!

4. Did your story include sheets and blankets? • Sheets are made from cotton first domesticated in India but now grown, spun and sewn in China by a British owned company. • Blankets are made from wool from sheep first tamed and herded in the Middle East but whose forebears first came from Spain and Australia where the wool was grown before being exported to Italy on a Liberian registered ship—crewed by men from the Philippines but with English officers before being exported to Canada where it is sold by a company from Sweden.

5. Did your story include a bed and slippers? • Beds are built from a design going back to the ancient Middle East and modified in Northern Europe and today made from sustainably grown plantation pine in Norway before being exported to Canada. • Slippers are much like the moccasins worn by aboriginal Canadians but today are made in Thailand using a synthetic fibre made in Singapore on a machine made in Russia

6. Did your story include a bathroom and soap? • Today’s bathrooms are modern adaptations of the washrooms in ancient Rome, Italy • Soap was made by the ancient Gauls in modern day France but made from Nigerian palm oil by a Dutch-English company with subsidiaries in almost every country of the world and advertised on our Japanese-made televisions by a Spanish-born Hollywood movie star. • Bath towels are made in Turkey with cotton from Egpyt

7. Hopefully, your story included clothes and shoes! • Jeans and t-shirts are both made in El Salvador but are worn by people in almost every country • Nike running shoes are made in Vietnam for an American company from skins tanned according to a process first developed in Egypt and rubber from Malaysia

8. Did your story include a jacket or cereal? • Rain jackets are made from nylon fibre made from oil from Iraq by a New Zealand owned company but with a brand named after a city in Nepal • Muesli (type of cereal) is based upon an original Swiss recipe made by a US owned company with grains first domesticated in Mexico

9. Do you drink coffee in the morning? • Coffee is cultivated in more than 70 countries, primarily in Latin America, Southeast Asia, and Africa. However, coffee cultivation first took place in Southern Arabia, probably Yemen. Coffee was the top agricultural export for 12 countries in 2004 and the world’s seventh largest legal agricultural export by value in 2005. It is one of the most traded agricultural commodities of the world.

10. What are the top headlines in the news today? • Four of the first 8 stories on the The Globe and Mail website are... “Ukraine Regions Vote on Sovereignty in Tense Referendums” “Nigerian Teen Who Escaped Captors Says She’s Scared to Return to School” “Iran’s Khamenei Says West’s Calls to Limit Missiles ‘Idiotic’” “English Premier League Boss Apologizes for Sexist Emails”

11. What about books and busses? • Your books might be printed by an English publishing company but will soon be available to read on the global internet • The bus is a Swedish Volvo running on Iranian oil and a big contributor to global climate change. But not as bad as those of you who got a drive to school in your parent’s cars made in Korea, Japan, Germany, the USA, etc.

12. How many global connections can you find in your morning routine? Make a list of possible global connections. If I didn’t mention one, use your smart phone to look it up and share with the class! Look at the labels of your clothes Consider what you have eaten in the past 24 hours Who have you connected with in the past 24 hours? How? Where were they? What websites have you visited?

13. What is globalization then? • Globalization is a relatively new term used to describe a very old process. It is a historical process that began with our human ancestors moving out of Africa to spread all over the globe. In the millennia that have followed, distance has been largely overcome and human-made barriers lowered or removed to facilitate the exchange of goods and ideas. Propelled by the desire to improve one's life and helped along by technology, both the interconnectedness and interdependence have grown. --Yale Global Online

14. What is globalization then? • Globalisation is the process by which the world is becoming increasingly interconnected as a result of massively increased trade and cultural exchange. Globalisation has increased the production of goods and services. The biggest companies are no longer national firms but multinational corporations with subsidiaries in many countries. • Globalisation has been taking place for hundreds of years, but has speeded up enormously over the last half-century. • Globalisation has resulted in: • increased international trade • a company operating in more than one country • greater dependence on the global economy • freer movement of capital, goods, and services --BBC online

15. What is globalization then? • Globalization is the connection of different parts of the world. Globalization results in the expansion of international cultural, economic, and political activities. As people, ideas, knowledge, and goods move more easily around the globe, the experiences of people around the world become more similar.—National Geographic

16. What is globalization then? • Globalisation (or globalization) is the process of international integration arising from the interchange of world views, products, ideas, and other aspects of culture.[1][2] Advances in transportation and telecommunications infrastructure, including the rise of the telegraph and its posterity the Internet, are major factors in globalization, generating further interdependence of economic and cultural activities.[3]—Wikipedia

17. What is globalization then? • Globalisation is a process in which the people and countries of the world are being brought closer and closer together, economically and culturally, through trade, information technology, travel, cultural exchanges, the mass media and mass entertainment. • --Unesco

18. What is globalization then? • … is the closer integration of the countries and peoples of the world … brought about by the enormous reduction of costs of transportation and communication, and the breaking down of artificial barriers to the flows of goods, services, capital, knowledge, and people across borders. --Stiglitz, J. (2004)Globalisation and its Discontents.

19. What is globalization? Use the definitions provided to write your own definition Share with the class and develop a class definition

20. One approach to studying globalization The Concentric Circles Approach • Perception that social actors move “out” from the local to the national or global • Does not see the global as “above”, but rather the global encloses the others • Yet viewing global is bigger or wider may lead us to assume that it is more powerful • Not a sense that we can skip over one scale

21. Another approach to studying globalization The Systems Approach • Belief that we cannot adequately understand the centre of the circle, or any of those around it, unless we can see it/them as something larger and more complex than itself • System acts like drive belts on a motor, turning and shaping personal and local worlds • Interdependence

22. Which approach is better for studying globalization? Why should we take this approach when studying globalization?

23. Sources Unesco.org